Xxxxx

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Last edited by Brooke Meyer; 05-14-2012 at 03:16 PM.

[snappychappy]

Very interesting figures there, some very large numbers.

[RioRico]

I should be outraged. THEY DON'T EVEN MAKE THEIR OWN STUFF!!! And of course Foxconn makes lots of that iStuff (and their high employee suicide rate is still lower than China's national rate). But then I look at the whole history of the camera+lens industry's corporate maze of rebadged 3rd-party products, and it looks about the same. And especially with commodity cameras: Does it matter who 'actually' made it? (Well yes: my Sony DSC-W7 came from an infamous mainland plant later renowned for its faulty cameras.)

[SteveM]

I am more open to Nikon moving a manufacturing plant somewhere other than Japan but I am less open to taking a "Ability Enterprise" camera and sticking a Nikon label on it. If it's still a Nikon camera, and only the manufacturing process has been subcontracted, then it's less of an issue but as a consumer, I still don't like it.

I find consumer products in general to be watered down. You pay a premium for Japanese or German engineering, but today a label no longer means much. For example, German and Japanese engineering is not necessarily done by the Germans or Japanese. It seems to be misleading to me. I know there is a "made in xxx" marking on products, but that doesn't tell the whole story. If something is designed, built and exported from China, why can't it be fully identified as such?

[RioRico]

I find consumer products in general to be watered down. You pay a premium for Japanese or German engineering, but today a label no longer means much. For example, German and Japanese engineering is not necessarily done by the Germans or Japanese. It seems to be misleading to me. I know there is a "made in xxx" marking on products, but that doesn't tell the whole story. If something is designed, built and exported from China, why can't it be fully identified as such?

As the terrible quake and tsunami illustrated, it's more complicated than that. Many sub-assemblies and components are manufactured in Japan or Germany or USA or wherever, then blended with parts from elsewhere in the world and finally assembled in yet another nation. The quake interrupted that critical component flow and reminded us that "made in China" still depends on Japanese supplies.

Some years ago I broke open a Texas Instruments calculator; inside were parts stamped Ireland, El Salvador, Malaysia, Japan, and USA, and IIRC it was assembled in Philippines -- after being engineered in Texas. Maybe. The most accurate label would be, "made on Terra". Yes, planet Earth is the factory floor.

[Zav]

The Pentax X70 is notoriously an ODM.